Recently I went to a hardcore show at a local venue called the Emerson. Before the show got to start a group of "straight-edgers" calling themselves "The Courage Crew" started what can only be described as a gang fight. This is the first time anything like this has happened at the Emerson and it is something I find quite desturbing. I am, I guess, a complete idiot on all the new terms and labels for music I always thought was just, what I called, some good shit. So when this new guy at work started talking about "straight-edgers", "hardliners", "hard core kids", and various other labels, I was baffled. I am still trying to learn all the terms so if I get anything wrong don't hate me. Apparently I am a metal-head. And apparently there is a big difference between hardcore and metal. I have yet to hear a major difference in the music(although I've been told it's there) but I have seen a huge difference in the crowd. The hardcore crowd seemed strange and unusual to me. Now I know that I am so much older than these youngsters, but even at the ripe old age of 21 I would think that I could understand the 15-18 year old crowd. At a metal show the pit consists of several people, clad in t-shirts from various bands ranging from Morbid Angel to Ozzy and blue jeans, lunging around, occasionally knocking in to someone, and maybe punching the air. Good, clean, wholesome fun. If you knock someone over, you stop, help him up, dust him off, and continue to mosh. At the hardcore show I saw several 16 year olds, wearing Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie, doing dances, I was later told, called "Picking Up Change" and "The Monkey". I saw them doing spin kicks and what appeared to be a person having an epileptic seizure. When I attempted to help the guy I was told it was just a dance. Now this is strange and unusual to me. Dancing in a mosh?????? What would Anthrax say? Something else I've noticed is that at the metal shows I see these 16 year old hardcore kids in the mosh attempting to injure others. I see them intentionally punching people, kicking people and just being malicious. I hate to sound old and not hip but back in my day we didn't do things like this. We didn't start gang fights. We didn't mosh just to hurt people. Concerts were about the music and we were all there because of our love for the same band. The same people you were running in to during the show were the same people with thier elbow on your shoulder, huffing, puffing, and sweating, saying "Great fuckin show, man!".(That was my best impression of Dana Carvey's "Grumpy Old Man") Things are getting out of hand though. I know people who are afraid to light a cigarette at a show because they might get their ass kicked by 12 guys. Am I just getting old before my time? I'm not supposed to say things like "Damn teenagers!" or "What's wrong with kids today?" One thing's for sure, if I start saying "This music is too loud." you have my permission to shoot me in the face.